Appearances Can Be Tricky

This photo has appeared on the blog before; I still like to take it out and look at it closely every once in a while. Although it appears to represent reality, it's really a sort of photographic riddle. 

Our property here in the Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico is a fenced-in lot with a few big trees, some cacti, a vintage adobe house, a garage, and a chicken house; it is surrounded by pecan orchards that are owned by someone else. I am always grateful for the shade and the bounty of these trees, some of which drop their pecans onto our yard. We have a huge supply of pecans in the freezer, we have pecan-shelling/sharing parties with our friends, and we cook with pecans all year round. 

I am also grateful that someone else does the work and makes the decisions associated with the orchard:  The plowing, fertilizing, pruning, harvesting, and the watering. As our drought continues and less irrigation water is available from snowmelt via the Rio Grande, wells are being drilled and groundwater pumped out to water the trees. The expense grows, as does the moral dilemma. How much water does one dare to bring up from the ancient deposits below the surface of the desert? When should farmers here just say enough is enough, and leave the pecan-growing to the farmers in rainier places like Georgia, where the trees are grown without the need for irrigation?

In the meantime, we are left to ponder the orchard. Although it looks like it has always belonged here in the Mesilla Valley, its existence here in the desert is not natural; should it stay or should it go? Is it what we see or what we think we see?

This is the actual orchard on irrigation day; the photo at the top of this post has been flipped upside down. It's not easy to see which is real and which is perception.

Water is a Really Big Deal Here

This is the way the Rio Grande has looked all winter: Dry and empty. People walk their dogs and fly kites in the riverbed. That sign warns people not to swim because of the strong current. No problemo.

The Rio is a managed river, no longer allowed to run free. Snowmelt and runoff is stored upstream from here in reservoirs; water treaties between Mexico, Texas, and New Mexico determine who gets how much when the water is released. Our governing body here in southern New Mexico is the Elephant Butte Irrigation District (EBID), which allots water to farmers and determines when the water will be sent down the river bed to them. This year southern New Mexican farms will get only 8 acre inches, up from 3 acre inches last year, but way below the usual 3 acre feet in good years.

Looking upstream

We went to see the newly flowing water, all silty and sludgy, as it made its way down the other day. This is a water event comparable to something like ice-out on Lake Winnipesaukee back in New Hampshire.

Big problem, though: None of this water is meant for the farmers here or in Texas, right now. EBID had originally scheduled the release for everyone's water all at one time in mid-May, but there was some kind of communications problem and the farmers in Mexico still expected to receive their water at the usual time, right about now.

There's a lot of foamy brown stuff as the water first sweeps through the dry river bed

Because the Mexican farmers weren't given enough notice to make other plans to pump from groundwater until the May release, they demanded (within their rights by treaty) to have their water sent now. The water in these photos will pass through New Mexico and Texas on its way to Mexico and there will be plenty lost to evaporation and through sinking into the dry riverbed. 

The view downstream

By the time they start getting their water in mid-May, the farmers here in New Mexico will have lost yet another precious acre inch of this year's scarce water allotment because of this earlier release to Mexico, and will have to pump that much more from their wells, pulling water from the underground reserves in the aquifer. Pumping is expensive, the aquifer is shrinking, and deeper pumping costs even more.

Pumping a new well in the orchard

Local farmers are having to drill new, deeper wells to get to the water they need for irrigation. Here is the drilling rig out behind our place in the pecan orchard; it's been working for days, drilling deeper and deeper for precious water.

For more information on this subject:

Release to Mexico in the Rio Grande Project, April 3, 2012

Official Website of the Elephant Butte Irrigation District

Water Supply Outlook, March 2012

New Mexico Ground Water Fact Sheet

A Dam in the Desert?

Las Cruces arroyo after a big rain

To live in the desert is to be aware of water. That seems obvious--living in a dry place, you learn to carry water at all times, to keep yourself hydrated, and to landscape with native or drought tolerant plants so that you reduce or eliminate the need for watering your yard.

However, when we first arrived in Las Cruces, we were surprised to find a great big earthen dam paralleling the highway. A dam in the desert? A dam with no water?

It's the Las Cruces Flood Control Dam and, as you can see from this cycling map (below), it is highlighted in red right next to Highway 25. Coming from a wetter climate, I am always interested to see that there are housing developments behind the dam--if this were a traditional dam like Hoover Dam, this is right where you would find Lake Mead.

You soon learn this about living in a dry place that gets just 8 - 12 inches of rainfall annually: When the rain does come, it sometimes comes hard and fast, drains off the mountains and mesas down into the river valley, and might lead to flooding if not otherwise diverted.

Back in the 1970s, the flood control dam was constructed. According to the City of Las Cruces Storm Water Management Design Standards, they are aiming for protection against a "100 year storm event."

Another Kind of Deficit Spending: Depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer and What is Being Done About It

Of all the posts that I have written on this blog, one that has consistently gotten a high number of hits is the post I wrote for Blog Action Day in 2007 on the Ogallala Aquifer. To quote from that post:

The Ogallala Aquifer is a vast deposit of water lying under eight states in the High Plains of the U.S.: South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. It is variously estimated to cover between 174,000 and 225,000 square miles, and lies between 50 and 300 feet below the surface. It was formed about 10 million years ago of gravelly soil that holds groundwater down below the water table. Experts believe that the aquifer contains roughly the amount of water contained by Lake Huron.

It is important that you know that the aquifer is being drawn down--more water is being used from it (94% for agricultural purposes in this area of the country)--than can be recovered through recharge.

I just came across a statement that worried me, and made me wonder just what is being done to conserve this resource. I found it in Our Towns; A Community Guide for Curry and Roosevelt Counties. Published by the Clovis News Journal, February 2009) and it stated: [Houston Lee, local farmer] said Curry and Roosevelt counties have flat land and irrigation good for farming, but the lack of water presents a challenge. Still he thinks agriculture will stay in the area for "a good while" because even if the aquifer is depleted, farmers will get enough rain for a crop. [Emphasis mine]

This is the kind of thinking about the aquifer--sure, we may deplete it through our current agricultural practices, but we'll still go on--that doesn't help our water problems at all. I would rather be reading about the steps being taken to preserve the water that we have.

The following statements are all quoted from an article titled The Ogallala; Cooperative Efforts to Preserve It, Protect It, by Mark Walbridge in Agricultural Research, April 2008, vol. 56, issue 4. It gives me hope to read that a 10 percent reduction in water usage could turn around the aquifer depletion problem, and that steps are being taken to achieve that goal.

Nolan Clark says that a 10-percent across-the-board reduction in irrigation would solve the Ogallala Aquifer's overdraft problem. Clark has worked for ARS for 37 of the 50-plus years the agency has been involved in Ogallala area water-conservation research and now oversees the Ogallala Aquifer Program.

All told, more than 100 researchers are involved in 80 projects that cover 1 or more of the initiative's 7 priorities for reducing water use. These are: cropping and tillage systems, crop-livestock operations, improved irrigation equipment and systems, economic analyses, predicting the rate of the aquifer's decline, measuring how much water plants need, and conserving water on feedlots.

Says [Sukant K. Misra, associate dean of research at Texas Tech University in Lubbock], "We also have a group of agronomists who are studying ways to conserve water, using different irrigation technologies. We have a group of GIS people who are mapping the aquifer, its levels, and rates of depletion. And we have researchers working on crop management practices, hydrology, and many other aspects related to conserving Ogallala water.

Ogallala Aquifer

This is it—Today is Blog Action Day. Bloggers around the web are uniting to put a single issue on everybody’s mind—the environment. According to the Blog Action Day web site: Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future. Close to 16,000 blogs with over 12 million readers are participating. This would be a great day for you to contribute to an environmental charity. Start here. http://blogactionday.org/charities .
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I am certainly no water expert, but I hadn’t lived in the southwest for long before I decided I wanted to learn more about the subject. Newspaper articles often referred to the Ogallala Aquifer, so I wanted to find out what it was and why it was important. Here is what I’ve learned.

The Ogallala Aquifer is a vast deposit of water lying under eight states in the High Plains of the U.S.: South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. It is variously estimated to cover between 174,000 and 225,000 square miles, and lies between 50 and 300 feet below the surface. It was formed about 10 million years ago of gravelly soil that holds groundwater down below the water table. Experts believe that the aquifer contains roughly the amount of water contained by Lake Huron. Drawdown, or water use, of the aquifer occurs when agricultural, industrial, and residential users withdraw water for surface use. About 94% of the water is used for irrigation in areas that formerly were a part of the Dust Bowl back in the 1930s. Recharge, water going back into the aquifer, comes from rainwater and snowmelt, a slow process in this dry climate area. Since the 1970s it has been apparent that drawdown is greater than recharge, leading to an ongoing depletion of the aquifer.

Adding a whole new aspect to any water discussion is our search for alternative fuels. The biofuel ethanol seems like a great answer to our dependence on oil-producing nations. However, in order to produce one gallon of ethanol, three to six gallons of water are used. Even more water is used in growing the corn necessary to make the ethanol.

The states concerned wrestle with issues of water policy, conservation, sustainability, and ethics. Should the water be used now, or should policy dictate sustainability? Do we continue with current irrigation practices to grow the corn and wheat that our economy demands, or should we conserve for the future? Do we continue expansion of biofuel production at the cost of permanently damaging water resources?

For more information, research, and discussions about the Ogallala Aquifer, see the following links.

Conserving the Ogallala Aquifer. http://www.choicesmagazine.org/2003-1/2003-1-04.htm

Ogallala Aquifer and Ethanol - The Potential for Another Dust Bowl: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/09/21/ogallala-aquifer-and-ethanol-the-potential-for-another-dust-bo/

Ogallala Aquifer Depletion: http://www.iitap.iastate.edu/gccourse/issues/society/ogallala/ogallala.html

Producing Ethanol Could Strain Resources: http://environmentaldefense.org/page.cfm?tagID=1550

Water Encyclopedia: http://waterencyclopedia.com/Oc-Po/Ogallala-Aquifer.html

Water-Level Changes in the High Plains Aquifer, 1980-1999: http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2001/fs-029-01/